South Carolina and UCLA will play for the women’s basketball national title after surviving the Final Four

By Jacob Lev, CNN

(CNN) — South Carolina and UCLA will face off for the women’s basketball national championship on Sunday after their victories in the Final Four.

Here is what to know from Friday’s madness:

South Carolina shocks UConn

South Carolina came into Friday’s game in a position they don’t usually find themselves in: As an underdog to UConn.

And they pulled off a stunning upset, downing the Huskies 62-47 to advance to the national championship game for the fourth time in the past five years.

After a low-scoring first half that saw both teams struggling from three-point range, it was the Gamecocks that woke up after halftime.

A quick 12-2 run helped South Carolina jump out to an eight-point lead, the biggest of the game up to that point.

However, the Huskies battled back with Kayleigh Heckel, Blanca Quiñonez and Azzi Fudd hitting back-to-back-to-back three-pointers to make it a one-point game.

But South Carolina answered right back to extend their lead to five with UConn finding themselves in an unfamiliar position — trailing at the end of three quarters for the first time this season.

The Gamecocks shut down any potential comeback attempt by the Huskies in the fourth quarter to coast to the victory.

UConn now ends the season with a 38-1 record and their 54-game winning streak comes to a screeching end.

Amid the season coming to an end for his Huskies squad, head coach Geno Auriemma appeared to exchange heated words with USC head coach Dawn Staley in the final seconds of the game.

The two were separated and did not appear to shake hands after the final buzzer, with Auriemma walking to the locker room tunnel by himself as his UConn players congratulated their opponents.

The 55-year-old Staley said she had “no idea” what happened with the skirmish, but that she “is of integrity.”

“I’m of integrity,” Staley told the ESPN broadcast after the game. “So, if I did something wrong to Geno, I had no idea what I did. I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning. I didn’t know. I went down there pregame, shook everyone on his staff’s hand. I don’t know where he came with after the game but hey, sometimes things get heated. We move on.”

The 72-year-old Auriemma, who is the NCAA’s winningest head coach in women’s or men’s college basketball history, initially refused to elaborate on the incident.

“I just said what I had to say. Nothing. Nothing,” Auriemma told reporters.

During the game, Auriemma expressed his displeasure to ESPN’s Holly Rowe on the officiating after Sarah Strong’s jersey appeared to be ripped, leading to her having to change her uniform.

“There were six fouls called that quarter – all of them against us. And they’ve been beating the s*** out of our guys down there the entire game. I’m not making excuses, ‘cause we haven’t been able to make a shot. But this is ridiculous,” Auriemma said.

But Auriemma expanded on his feelings after the game, including on Staley, adding he had “no regrets.”

“I’ve been coaching a long time. I’ve never had a kid have to change their jersey because somebody ripped it and the official said, I didn’t see it,” Auriemma said.

“There are a lot of things that happened in that game. Unless you’re on that sideline, you have no idea what’s happening on this sideline. No, I mean, for 41 years I’ve been coaching and, I don’t know, 25 Final Fours. The protocol is before the game you meet at halfcourt. Anybody see that before? Two coaches meet at halfcourt and they shake hands, correct? Ever see it? They announce it on the loudspeaker. I waited there for like three minutes. So it is what it is.”

Besides jokingly questioning his future in coaching, Auriemma also called for a “double standard” in how coaches talk to refs, pointing a finger at Staley for how she allegedly communicated during the game.

“I’m of the opinion that if I ever talk to an official like that, I would get tossed. So I just want to make sure there’s not a double standard, that some people are allowed to talk to officials like that and other people are not. That’s it,” Auriemma added.

The Gamecocks will now look to bring their fourth-ever title back to Columbia, South Carolina on Sunday.

UCLA wins in a defensive slugfest

The finale of the two games on Friday was another defensive slugfest, in which both teams struggled mightily on offensive in the first half.

But it was UCLA, who hung on to defeat the Texas Longhorns 51-44 to propel the Bruins to an opportunity to collect the program’s first national title.

The Longhorns scored just six points in the first quarter and the Bruins responded by scoring the same amount in the second, with the score ending up as 20-17 heading into halftime.

But just like South Carolina-UConn, the offense found a way in the second half, with UCLA jumping out to the game’s first double-digit lead of the game early in the fourth quarter behind Kiki Rice’s shooting.

UCLA extended its lead to 13 until Texas went on a 12-2 run to cut it to a three-point game with just under a minute to go.

On a critical play, Texas forward Madison Booker, who struggled shooting all night, went up for a layup with the hope of making it a one-point game, but was blocked by the Bruins’ All-American center Lauren Betts.

Betts finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds for her seventh career double-double in the NCAA tournament.

“I just wanted to win it so bad for this,” Betts told ESPN after the game. “I mean, we worked so hard. It’s just execution, when you work so hard and you’re consistent every day at practice and the coaches hold a standard, great things happen.”

The Bruins will now face South Carolina on Sunday in the national championship game at 3:30 p.m. ET.

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